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Eversource Energy is turning to efficiency and energy storage to help maintain reliability in a small, rural New Hampshire town prone to outages, rather than spend $6 million to construct a new 10-mile distribution circuit. The largest component of the Westmoreland Clean Innovation Project is a 1.7 MW / 7.1 MWh lithium-ion battery, estimated to cost $7 million. Despite being costlier than the new-circuit alternative, the utility says the project will deliver savings to Eversource customers by reducing peak costs. The project aims to improve service in the town, which is served by a single major power line.

Scientists from General Electric's Global Research Center in Niskayuna recently won a $1.25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to study the viability of so-called pumped storage hydropower technology that essentially stores up power generated from solar and wind farms for use on the electric grid. The grant, which was awarded by the DOE's Water Power Technologies Office, will be shared by GE Research, GE Energy Consulting and GE Renewable Energy's hydro team.

A Chilean utility has broken ground on a 50 megawatt-hour (MWh) battery energy storage project paired with a run-of-river hydroelectric facility. The battery will be capable of storing electricity produced from the hydro generation without needing to construct a dam or make use of a water reservoir, creating instead a “virtual dam” that can deliver 10 megawatts (MW) of power for 5 hours.

In order to accelerate the development of next-generation energy storage, U.S. Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Cory Gardner (R-CO), Tina Smith (D-MN), Chris Coons (D-DE), Martha McSally (R-AZ), and Angus King (I-ME) introduced the Better Energy Storage Technology (BEST) Act today. Their bipartisan legislation will support grid-scale energy storage research and development and improve the efficiency of the nation’s electric grid, while helping to align research efforts on energy storage technologies.

Microgrids increasingly depend on solar-plus-storage — or the ability to generate solar power on site and to store excess electrons in batteries that would release that energy when it is needed. Energy storage provides a Swiss army knife of services, from shaving peak load to storing and injecting wind and solar electrons onto the grid. It enhances reliability while also increasing efficiencies and allowing for more green energy on the grid.

The United States will this year become the world’s largest market for grid-connected battery energy storage, as solar-plus-storage and peaking capacity requirements drive increased procurement, according to IHS Markit. Deployments of grid-connected energy storage in the United States this year are expected to amount to 712 MW, almost double of 376 MW in 2018.

Solar and wind are clearly the future of energy, yet the adoption of renewables has been largely constrained by their intermittent nature. Innovations in energy storage technology might change that. In the last year alone energy storage has grown by 6 GWh of capacity globally and it has the potential to grow 13 times present levels by 2024. With energy storage costs having fallen by 85% since 2010, solar-plus-storage suddenly becomes a great option, especially when combined with the fast growth of solar and wind markets. All these developments are set to remake the renewable energy landscape.

Working with scientists at the Schatz Energy Research Center at nearby Humboldt State University, and the local utility PG&E, the Rancheria Casino has developed its own solar-powered microgrid, allowing it to disconnect from the main grid and run off battery power. The setup powers six buildings, including a 55,000-square-foot casino and 102 hotel rooms—over 140,000 square feet of total building space.

In recent years, 50-60% of Uruguay’s power has been generated from the country’s four hydroelectric dams on the River Uruguay. Most of the remainder comes from renewable energy sources such as solar panels and wind turbines. That combination has turned the country into the world’s poster child for low-carbon energy. The one remaining sticking point is storage. Without it, renewables can only be used as they are generated. Hydro storage provides reliability and flexibility to a renewables-based grid by creating a huge, continuously rechargeable battery that is entirely powered by the elements.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) voted Thursday to deny requests for rehearing of Order 841, a landmark decision seeking to provide fair market access for energy storage resources. Commissioners were nearly unanimous in voting to affirm FERC's determinations made in Order 841 regarding their authority over wholesale market sales, and to decline to adopt a state-by-state opt out of storage participation in the wholesale market.

Value stacking, or revenue stacking, is expected to play an increasingly important role in energy storage's future, with industry stakeholders currently determining the best ways to monetize the various use-case applications of storage. While utilities and regulators across the country have toyed with the idea of value stacking, and even adopted minor changes to capitalize on the technology's different applications, value stacking on a large scale is not happening yet.

The venture capital unit of Mexican cement giant Cemex is investing in Swiss company Energy Vault, which has developed energy storage technology inspired by pumped hydro plants. Energy Vault’s system replaces water with custom made concrete bricks that are combined with a proprietary algorithm-based software to operate a crane.

ENGIE North America Inc. today announced the acquisition of Genbright, a company pioneering the integration of distributed energy resources into wholesale electricity markets. The purchase enables ENGIE and its DER businesses, including ENGIE Storage, to further the adoption and growth of DERs within markets throughout the United States.

North Carolina regulators on Friday approved a solar+storage microgrid project proposed by Duke Energy, designed to help maintain reliable power for a small town called Hot Springs in the western part of the state. The project includes a 2 MW solar array and 4 MW lithium-ion battery, and will be Duke's first utility-scale solar+storage project for residential customers. The microgrid is a small part of Duke's broader plan to roll out more storage on its system.

The Ludington pumped storage facility is essentially one of the world’s largest batteries. Consumers Energy gets its base load of energy from its coal and gas plants across the state. When the energy demands peak above that base load, they need places like the Ludington Pumped Storage Facility to pick up the slack. In just a matter of minutes, they can open up the gates, get the water flowing through the turbines and pick up that amount. When the demand is low, like at night, they will start pumping water back in to the reservoir, getting ready for that next call.

Fortum has started operating a 5 MW/6.2 MWh lithium-ion battery storage system at the Forshuvud hydropower plant in Dalarna, Sweden. It plans to use the storage system to lower the risk of network disturbances, while minimizing what Fortum describes as “wear and tear” on the hydropower facility. The batteries at Forshuvud will compensate for increasingly rapid changes in electricity generation caused by wind power, for example. The system will improve the hydropower plant’s role as a regulator and more effectively take advantage of capacity regulation.

NEC Energy Solutions has completed a 500 kW/1000 kWh battery energy storage system installed at a microgrid in the Howard Elementary School in Eugene, Oregon. The project, part of Eugene Water & Electric Board’s plan to improve esiliency by creating community points of water distribution around the city of Eugene for its customers during restoration following a large-scale disaster.

The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) on April 30 said it has become one of the first wholesale power markets in the United States to connect a new and innovative battery storage technology to its grid. The four-year pilot project is intended to test and evaluate the performance of flow batteries in the commercial wholesale market. San Diego Gas & Electric, in coordination with Tokyo-based Sumitomo Electric, started testing a flow battery in 2015, according to CAISO, and the battery started participating in the ISO wholesale market in December.

We commend Gov. Larry Hogan for signing the Energy Storage Pilot Project Act to advance energy storage in Maryland. Thanks to the leadership of State Sen. Brian Feldman, Chair of the Energy & Publilc Utilities Subcommittee of the Finance Committee, Del. Kumar Barve, Chair of the Environment & Transportation Committee, and Del. Marc Korman, Maryland will test regulatory ownership and deployment models to id entify savings and reliability benefits for ratepayers. This law exemplifies the bipartisan collaboration of Maryland policymakers and stakeholders, in coordination with the Public Service Commission.

Con Edison, the utility servicing New York City and one of the largest privately-owned utilities in the US, is beginning a drive to install small energy storage systems across NYC to meet local energy needs without costly infrastructure upgrades. Many of the battery projects are part of Reforming the Energy Vision, a larger state-wide program to modernize the grid and lower emissions.

A new report from Navigant Research discusses how energy storage value-added services (VASs) have evolved and how the storage industry has grown by using VASs to reduce customer risks. Because potential customers are generally unfamiliar with energy storage system (ESS) technology, VASs are required for projects to be considered bankable by customers and investors. These services shift technological and financial risk for project performance from customers to the battery hardware providers and systems integrators that design and build an ESS.

As a member of the Energy Storage Association, the US-based organization representing companies involved in the energy storage field, the Consortium for Battery Innovation had a clear message when exhibiting at the group’s annual conference, ESACon19: Lead batteries deliver a reliable, safe and cost-effective option for a wide range of energy storage applications. ESACon19 was the ideal place to launch CBI’s latest service – an interactive map showcasing global installations using lead batteries for utility and renewable energy storage. The interactive map highlights the successful use of advanced lead batteries for energy storage, an industry seeing increasingly rapid market growth and demand.

A planned facility that would convert and store electricity generated by offshore wind turbines was unveiled Monday at Brayton Point. Construction on the Anbaric Renewable Energy Center is expected to begin in 2021 and will result in a 1,200-megawatt, high-voltage direct current converter. The facility will serve as the “plug-in” between offshore wind turbines and the power grid from which local homes and buildings receive electricity. Anbaric is also planning to build 400 megawatts worth of battery storage on the site, which would be utilized on days when winds are low and turbine output is less productive.

Researchers have built a more efficient, more reliable potassium-oxygen battery, a step toward a potential solution for energy storage on the nation’s power grid and longer-lasting batteries in cell phones and laptops. In a study published this month in the journal Batteries and Supercaps, researchers from The Ohio State University detailed their findings centering around the construction of the battery’s cathode, which stores the energy produced by a chemical reaction in a metal-oxygen or metal-air battery. The finding, the researchers say, could make renewable energy sources like solar and wind more viable options for the power grid through cheaper, more efficient energy storage.